The 'Final Frontier' Still In Danger

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Anyone who hasn't lived under a rock their entire life is at least somewhat familiar with the Star Trek title sequence quoted above, and can recognize that when someone speaks of the "final frontier," they're talking about space. To the American psyche, NASA and its rocket programs represent the innovative spirit of the American people and stands as a bright beacon its history. Through the Cold War, in the face of 90s budget cuts, and even in the wake of the Columbia and Challenger disasters, NASA has remained strong and true in its dedication to the original goals set in its early days, but that is all about to change.

President Obama announced in his proposed budget for the 2010 fiscal year he would attempt to draw away from NASA's original intent of space exploration and rocket programs more towards a purer research aspect, an idea which he has now made reality. In light of the warning from Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and Gene Cernan that this plan "destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature," Obama's new vision for NASA received a lot of press, but was rarely, if ever dissected in a way which made clear what this new vision really entailed. Sadly, like most presidential space policies, it lacks little specific budget information, mission architectures, or most notably, technical details, and the devils in any space policy inevitably lie in the details.

President Obama's new plan does several things: first, the new policy has canceled the launches planned under the Constellation program, and will scale back the Orion crew capsule for use as a mere lifeboat on the International Space Station, complementing the Russian Soyuz capsules already docked at the station; secondly, the plan shifts significant funding to commercial transportation of both crew a cargo. By doing this, the new plan takes away the previous direct responsibility of NASA to design and develop technologies like the Ares and Orion rocket systems. President Obama's aim is to shift this responsibility to the private sector and away from NASA itself.

One disgruntled shuttle worker rebukes the idea about the private sector, saying "I believe in private industry, I just don't believe they are ready yet...We are turning our access to space over to private when they haven't shown they can handle it yet...Once they show a reliable way to get into space then I'm all for it, but I'm not for some vague future of promises." Beyond this, I have to say pulling the plug from many of the rocket programs will not only result in the loss of thousands of jobs (although, to give them credit, the Obama administration does contend that the new vision for space will, in the end, somehow create more jobs than the 2012 Constellation program would have), but also in the loss of progress. NASA's on-going investigations include in-depth surveys of Mars and Saturn and studies of the Earth and the Sun. Other NASA space craft are en route to Mercury and Pluto. With missions to Jupiter in planning stages, NASA's itinerary covers over half of our solar system.

If we phase the space exploration aspect of NASA, we cut out its very heart. NASA's space policy, its intent, up until Obama's new announced vision was "to execute a sustained and affordable human and robotic program of space exploration an to develop, acquire, and use civil space systems to advance fundamental knowledge of our Earth system, solar system, and universe." By placing the true future of NASA in the hands of, well, presidents who have time for progress, he is thereby pushing aside years of work and progress. By throwing away potential future technologies and advances until at least 2010, Obama not only forfeits America's chance to be at the forefront of a growing market and global goal, but also one that is much closer to home.

I, as well of much of America, will (and should) remain skeptic of Obama's new vision for space, even after it has ceased to be widely publicized. We should remain skeptic of his scrapping of the ten billion dollar Constellation program, his tossing away of some over 9,000 Florida Space Coast jobs, his putting on hold of the possible advances which would add to the more than 1500 documented products derived from space technologies, and of his plan to somehow send manned space flights to Mars in the 2020s (with what program, Mr. President? Especially considering the thousands of years it would take to terraform Mars, as it is currently uninhabitable). We should all continue to question Obama's deviation from a long-standing goal, one that has been in place since astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space when he piloted Freedom 7 on a 15 minute suborbital flight in May 1961 -- the same year Obama was born -- a goal which should never be forgotten...to continue to boldly go where no man has gone before.